Universal Animation Studios
Stuart Snyder Margie Cohn |owners = Comcast |parent = Universal Studios (NBCUniversal) }} Universal Animation Studios (formerly Universal Cartoon Studios or Universal Feature Animation or simply known as Universal Animation) is the animation division of Universal Pictures, tasked for animated productions. The studio has primarily focused upon the production of television and feature animation of other properties, notably including those related to Universal's Gingo Animation division. History The original Walter Lantz Productions cartoon studio was closed down by Universal Studios in 1972 due to the rising costs and declining returns of short subject production. However, before Universal restarted its animation division in 1991, Universal released its first three animated films, such as An American Tail in 1986, The Land Before Time in 1988, and Jetsons: The Movie in 1990. Universal Cartoon Studios opened its doors in 1991 to produce animated feature films and television series for Universal. That same year, the studio produced its very first production, which is an animated television series based on Back to the Future films airing on CBS from 1991 to 1992. At the time when Universal Cartoon Studios was founded in 1991, Universal established its own feature animated department called Universal Feature Animation to produce theatrically released animated feature films. From 1989–1997, Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment operated Amblimation, a traditional animation studio which was started to compete with Walt Disney Animation Studios, which was experiencing great success at the time with films such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. The Amblimation studio, however, was not as successful. Their first feature An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, a sequel to 1986's An American Tail, made $40 million at the worldwide box office in 1991, but their next feature, We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, was a box office bomb, only grossed $9.3 million in the United States in 1993, while their third and final feature Balto grossed $11 million worldwide and was overshadowed by the success of the competing Disney•Pixar film Toy Story in 1995. Amblimation was shut down in 1997 and some of its staff went on to join DreamWorks Animation. Since 1999, Universal became the primary distributor of animated features produced by Gingo Animation, an North Hollywood-based animation company. Universal has had much more success with Gingo, and the box office receipts of their films are competitive with those of Disney and Pixar. By 2004, Gingo became the flagship feature animation division of Universal, which acquired the studio in that year. Animators at Gingo worked on projects based at the Gingo studio, but also assisted in UAS projects based in the Glendale UAS studio. In 2006, Universal Cartoon Studios was renamed into Universal Animation Studios. In 2008, Illumination Entertainment, an animation production company founded by Chris Meledandri, made a deal with Universal Studios which positioned Illumination as NBCUniversal’s family entertainment arm within its own feature animation field (which consists of Gingo) that would produce one to three films a year starting in 2010, divided between Gingo and Illumination. Like Gingo Animation, Illumination retains creative control and Universal exclusively distributes the films; many critics and fans of Gingo alike felt that both Gingo and Illumination were meant to help Universal to establish a successful feature animation group and a competitor to Disney's feature animation group which consists of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, respectively. To maintain the separateness of Gingo and Illumination (even though they share common ownership and senior management), it was outlined that each studio is to remain solely responsible for its own projects and is not allowed to borrow personnel from or lend tasks out to the other. In August 2009, Sony Pictures Imageworks formed a deal with Universal where it will provide the computer animation for stand-alone animated films produced by Universal Animation Studios, starting with the release of Shinning the Metal in 2011. In February 2010, Universal Studios announced that they had signed a deal with Virginia-based Storyline 72 Animation Group to co-develop and co-produce a series of animated projects to be released under the Universal Animation Studios label. In July, however, Universal ended its deal with Storyline 72 when the executives realized that their projects did not fit well in with Universal's other upcoming releases. In September 2012, Universal named former Walt Disney Feature Animation president Peter Schneider the new president of Universal Animation Studios; however, in January 2013, Schneider resigned for personal reasons. In September 2013, Universal named another former Disney Animation president David Stainton as the president of the studio. In October 2015, Universal Pictures named former Cartoon Network president Stuart Snyder as the executive vice president of the studio. On April 28, 2016, NBCUniversal announced its intent to acquire DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion, making DreamWorks Animation the third animation studio owned by Universal after Gingo and Illumination; the acquisition was later completed on August 22, 2016. On that same day, the television animation divisions of Universal, Gingo and DreamWorks merged. Process Universal Animation Studios relies on other animation studios and VFX companies to provide the animation on their films. This includes C.O.R.E. Feature Animation (Metro Cone, The 10 Feet, Metro Cone 2), Toon City Animation & Yowza! Animation (Curious George), Sony Pictures Imageworks (Shinning the Metal, Metro Cone 3: The Mystery to New York, Workers, Luna & Zak, Evolupia, Addie). Initially, from 1997 to 2003, the studio used to produce traditionally hand-drawn animated films in-house. Some films, such as The Tale of Despereaux (Relativity Media and Framestore Feature Animation), Cool Spot (Glass Ball Productions), Addie (Sony Pictures Animation and Doscraft Animation), Vampy (Blumhouse Productions and Reel FX Creative Studios) and Z.O.O. (Aardman Animations and Mako Animation), are created outside of Universal Animation, although they are released under the studio's label. Additionally, for some of Universal Animation's productions such as direct-to-video films, the actual animation production is done overseas, usually by either Wang Film Productions or Rough Draft Studios, while pre-production and post-production is United States-based. Filmography Theatrical feature films Released films Upcoming films : Not produced, but released by Universal Animation Studios under its label. Direct-to-video feature films : Combines live-action with animation. Television specials Short films Television series See also * Illumination Entertainment * DreamWorks Animation * Universal Interactive Studios Category:Companies Category:Universal Studios Category:NBCUniversal Category:Comcast Category:Universal Animation Studios